I've played Europa Universalis 3 and 4 and love those games. I've not played any other Paradox Interactive games and so recently downloaded demos for some of their other titles, including CK2 and Victoria 2. Either I've just gotten so used to Europa's learning curve (which was steep as is), or CK2 and Victoria (especially Victoria) are even more complicated. Played through all the tutorials and still feel clueless when I try to begin a single player game.

I've played Europa Universalis 3 and 4 and love those games. I've not played any other Paradox Interactive games and so recently downloaded demos for some of their other titles, including CK2 and Victoria 2. Either I've just gotten so used to Europa's learning curve (which was steep as is), or CK2 and Victoria (especially Victoria) are even more complicated. Played through all the tutorials and still feel clueless when I try to begin a single player game.

Victoria is insanely hard to grasp. CK 2 is actually pretty easy though after you have clocked some 3-4 hours, or just watch a good let's play that explains the game.

Been strongly considering picking this game up when I have the chance but I'm a bit hesitant because I've heard it has a large learning curve and I've never played a grand strategy game before (unless you count Total War games, and I don't). I was wondering if it might be better for me to start with something simpler, and if so, what? Do you have any ideas/suggestions?

Been strongly considering picking this game up when I have the chance but I'm a bit hesitant because I've heard it has a large learning curve and I've never played a grand strategy game before (unless you count Total War games, and I don't). I was wondering if it might be better for me to start with something simpler, and if so, what? Do you have any ideas/suggestions?

Crusader Kings II is more or less the simplest game Paradox has put out, and definitely the most entertaining. There's no other strategy game quite like it, and the learning curve isn't really that bad.

Protip: ignore the tutorial altogether, it's less than helpful. A good place to start is as a count in Ireland on the 1066 start (it's often referred to as Tutorial Island), though if you have The Old Gods then Ivar the Boneless of Sudreyjar has an insanely easy start, and can control half of Britannia within 25 years if played right. Don't start off as a full-on king or emperor, your vassals will eat you alive.

Fair enough. The key with Ivar is to occupy as much of Northumbria as possible while also taking Kent or whatever that petty kingdom in the south is, take ambition "become king of Scotland" to get some CBs against Malcolm of Scotland, and meanwhile conquer Ireland county by county through subjugation CBs. It's been a month or two since I did a Sudreyjar game, so I might be misremembering which ambition to take.

Pagans are pretty broken in vanilla on the 867 start. CKII+ and its continuations massively nerfed them.

So I still haven't bought it (bought Civ IV Complete Edition instead because it was cheaper and could be found offline), but I did download the demo and spent more or less the entire weekend playing it (seriously! A demo! Crazy!). So far it hasn't been that bad; most of it is fairly intuitive if you pay attention to the directions at the beginning, and it helped that I've seen some LPs. There are a few areas where I'm still confused, mostly having to do with technology and religion. I don't understand how they work much at all; especially technology. And since I've only played Bohemia and Poland demos so far I haven't tried out the navy yet, but I imagine that won't be too different from land armies.

Anyway it'll be a bit before I get it since I did just spend $20 on Civ and that's a whole lot of gameplay right there anyway (having a lot of fun in that as well, and I haven't even started playing the expansions yet). But I'll definitely have to get this soon no matter what. Also thinking about EUIV/Victoria II/HoI III sometime later, both for their own sake and to do a mega campaign.

- Waived the creation conditions (culture, religion) for most kingdoms and empires for human players
- Having a marriage alliance now increases opinion by 30 (quite useful vs liege or vassals)
- Reduced the overall revolt risk
- There is now a +50 opinion bonus when a liege is the primary defender in a war against foreigners
- Increased the opinion bonus to +75 when a liege is the primary defender in a holy war (and improved the check)
- A Holding owner's personal martial skill now affects the levy size (exported as HOLDING_LEVY_SIZE_OWNER_MARTIAL_BASE and HOLDING_LEVY_SIZE_OWNER_MARTIAL_MULT)
- A character's original birth name is now shown in the tooltip if he or she has a regnal name (e.g. popes)
- Made adventures a bit less common
- When ransoming a courtier that has money, that character's money will now be used towards paying the ransom, and if they have enough money for the whole ransom their liege will not have to pay anything at all
- Opinion boost for releasing a prisoner is now +5 opinion per tier of their primary title (so +5 for a Baron, +10 for a Count etc).
- Entering observe mode will now automatically lift FoW
- Charinfo console command is now a proper toggle and does not require additional input
- Now generates courtiers to mercenaries and holy orders so they can be put as leader for the sub-units.
- Dying a "natural death" below the age of 45 is now called dying of "poor health" instead
- Lowered the priority of faction messages to reduce spam
- Lowered the priority of heir choices under elective monarchy to reduce spam
- Added 'Split in Half' button for units
- Powerful kings and emperors will now sometimes set up antipopes
- Cynical rulers may now sometimes switch back to Free Investiture law
- AI: Higher prio on helping friendly armies in battle
- AI: Better at coordinating attacks together with their allies